Problem with Phone, Android or ROM?

[LouisXIII]

Hi folks,
I just bought a HTC Desire VC less than a month ago, but I'm having so much problems, I'm on the verge of giving up on it now :-(

Though this is not my 1st Android phone, but I'm still rather new to Android phones. I bought my previous 1 only 3 months ago, when I was having a break & some time to play with Smart phones. My previous phone was Xperia Pro, I was happily experiencing Smart phones, until I need to relocate for a new job. Getting a local mobile at this new job location seem logical. Therefore, the local mobile package I got, & by topping up some cash, I get this new HTC Desire VC.

To summarise, the problems I'm having with this HTC phone include:

1. Unable to open some text sms, error message just says,

 

[chanchan05]

I haven't heard of a Desire VC, but from your description it seems to be a Desire C variant. Now thing is if I'm correct and its a low end phone, I'd stay take it back. I don't know what HTC was thinking with the Desire C, but there is a very good reason why low end Samsung phones stick to GB, and Sony doesn't have any really low end models, just mid range ones with ICS. I'd advise you to take it back and try another model.

 

[LouisXIII]

Hi chanchan05,
thanks for your response. This HTC Desire VC costs more than the Sony Ericsson Xperia Pro I bought. Being new to smart phones, I'm not sure if it's a variant of Desire C, the model number is T328D. It's a Dual SIM card smart phone, with 1 slot being CDMA SIM card, and the other slot being GSM SIM card. I read in XDA developers, it seems very similar, almost identical to Desire V, T328W. Or probably Desire V is an abbreviation for VC, or T328W is variant of T328D (or the other way round)?

The behavior is the same with both SIM cards, or at least, I'm using both SIM cards the same way, the GSM card being my old number (which I still need to transit for some time for my contacts), and the CDMA being the new carrier's. Now I remember, it seems the sms error seem to be with the CDMA card, I don't seem to encounter errors with the GSM card.

Problem is, in my part of the globe, once we buy & paid for a phone or merchandise, it's unlikely the merchant will allow us to take it back. Maybe they'll regard it as trade-in if we get a higher end model of the same brand, but at the moment, I have lost faith in HTC, this being my 1st experience with HTC. Furthermore, I'm not sure if the higher end phones support CDMA system, which is used by the current package of this local carrier.

As you said, lower end Samsung stick to Ginger Bread for a very good reason, I'm wondering whether I can downgrade the Android version of this HTC phone. Being in the software industry myself, I don't like to use the latest software versions, also for a good reason which is often seen nowadays. I won't be surprised if there's some marketing conspiracy on this HTC phone model.

 

[LouisXIII]

From HTC's websites in various regions, from XDA developers & some other websites, I see that Desire V (T328W) and Desire VC (T328D) are sold at least in Southeast Asia and China. Not quite sure about other countries in Asia. The main difference between the 2 are the SIM networks that they support, all other specs the same. Seem Desire C is older version and lower spec than Desire V / Desire VC.

In any case, apart from the problems I'm having, there's also performance problem. It may take quite some time, ie, the phone "hangs" for several seconds, sometimes with the cursor changed to a running circle, before going back to my home screen or ending an application.

I have no problems with using Skype on my Xperia Pro running on Android 2.3.4, but Skype short-cut icon keep disappearing from my home screen on this HTC phone. There were also instances Skype went missing from the All Applications. I noticed, that when the phone is "stressed", other application icons also went missing, and come back only after moving to another screen and coming back. And the only stress I gave the phone was re-arranging the positions and locations of all the applications in the various pages!

I believe 1 of the causes of performance problem is both HTC and the carrier loaded lots of applications when it came outta factory settings, the icons occupied 5 screen pages almost fully! And I don't use most of the applications, but since I haven't rooted the phone yet, I'm not able to uninstall many / most of them. And if Android 4.0.3 requires quite some resources / resource intensive and causes quite some stress or even conflicts, it's no wonder this HTC phone is having so many problems! And HTC's engineers allowed this to happen and release this into the markets...I saw plenty of people at HTC's Service Center, many of them losing their cool & throwing tempers, the customer management skills of the employees is also another reason causing people to lose their cool

 

[chanchan05]

Well, HTC probably has had some issues with their lower end devices leading to their spiraling fall in revenue. However, as you said yourself that you saw HTC having a lot of trouble with their mid-range devices, I'd say try to get a better device either by going to Samsung or Sony on the same price point, or a higher end model. I've heard nothing but good things about high end HTC devices (One series), but if you're at your price limit, I'd suggest maybe an Sony Xperia Sola or Samsung Galaxy Ace 2. Both are around the same price point I believe, but running dual core processors which would allow them to perform better.

I don't think you can downgrade. You can't downgrade to a version below that of the base version your phone's model came with, and I believe that your phone came with ICS straight from factory. You can try to look for alternative clean Android ROMs for it though, versions that are bloatware and SenseUI-free.